


The Siren Song, or There Goes Immunity

by Icarus_Isambard



Category: Original Work
Genre: Airships, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Attempted Seduction, Genderbending, Humor, Innuendo, Meta, Moby Dick References, Nymphs & Dryads, Other, Sirens, Sky Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-11-08 13:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20836064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarus_Isambard/pseuds/Icarus_Isambard
Summary: An ace airship captain is immune to the flying sirens that captivate the rest of her crew with song. Or is she?Chapter 1 of this story was originally written for a prompt on r/asexuality (how could clever sirens lure asexual pirates to their doom?). It was the work of only a few hours, and so I'd intended to go back and shore up/expand the material. Well, I just did. Chapter 2 is called "Nay, Calypso" and you can probably guess the premise from that.





	1. The Siren Song, or There Goes Immunity

**Author's Note:**

> [Author's note: Chapter One was originally posted on r/asexuality in response to a post about how sirens might lure ace pirates to their doom. I wrote a dramatization, and I've cross-posted it here for your convenience! Thanks for reading.]

Captain Jane Goshawk leaned into the wind, coat flapping about her as she surveyed the gray thunderheads rising like cliffs on either side of her good airship _Pie-in-the-Sky_. Many an old wind-blown skyhand had warned her off this route, but it was quicker to fly between opposing air-currents. They'd had easy sailing thus far. To Hades with that craven advice.

“Lightning off the port bow!” she cried, blinded by a flash. Instead of thunder, her ears filled with heavenly choral music. So…the legends were true.

“Angels!” shouted the helmsman. Goshawk glanced over her shoulder to see his body go slack and his eyes pop. “The angels have come to…make love to us! I must go to them!” His entire body shuddered, his eyes glazed, and the wheel slipped from his hands as he headed for the rail.

“They’re not angels, you idiot.” Goshawk collared the helmsman with one hand and stopped the spinning wheel with the other. “Mr. Starbuck!” she shouted into the wind. “Get the entire crew below deck and lock yourselves in the hold. I’m taking the helm myself and I shall get us to the nearest port, come hell or hurricane!”

The first mate dashed along the deck, his hair drenched, and spectacles fogged from the rain. He saluted, and she noticed he held a book protectively under one arm.

“Captain! I had a strange reading on the squadulous resonator, so I preemptively handed out cotton-ball earplugs for the crew. They’re headed below deck now.” Mr. Starbuck shoved a spare set of plugs into the helmsman’s ears. “He should snap out of it…now.”

The helmsman’s eyes refocused on a handwritten paper sign Mr. Starbuck held up:

GO BELOW DECK & DON’T COME OUT

“Aye, sir!” The helmsman double-timed away.

Mr. Starbuck gave a wearied sigh. “One of the cabin-girls tried to hurl herself after some crooning eagle-winged bloke with chiseled abs who came swooping past the deck just now. I caught her just as she jumped, screaming about having babies or something.”

Goshawk rolled her eyes. “What a bloody nuisance. Oh, sorry.” She gestured at her first mate’s ears. "You probably can’t hear me over your earplugs, can you?"

Mr. Starbuck gave a sheepish grin. “Oh, I don’t need them, but I brought some for you.”

They exchanged a long glance of slow realization. Meanwhile, lithe, sensual women and muscular, masculine men whirled above them on pointlessly sexy wings, singing equally pointless pickup lines set to some popular tune.

“I mean, they are rather aesthetically pleasing I suppose. Might make a nice airship figurehead. Not much personality, though. I’ll take Captain Ahab any day.”

“Ha.” Captain Goshawk tipped her hat. The ace of spades adorned the hatband.

Mr. Starbuck pointed to his purple, gray and black-striped cravat. Then he held up his book. “I was just hoping to finally get some quiet reading done up here.” He lowered his voice, embarrassed. “I’m at the part where they're lowering the boats, about to chase down their first whale.”

Goshawk laughed. “To think we never realized it before. I should have guessed—I hired you partly because you were the only first mate applicant who didn’t make a pointed statement about my lack of bustier."

“But Captain, you asked for the special back room at the brothel at our last port, and I assumed—”

Goshawk laughed. “That’s because I ordered the taglioni with lobster and black truffles.” She grimaced. “It’s basically a drug deal, only with food. But we all have our vices…”

Her voice trailed off. The singing sirens flapping about had altered their tune slightly. The words were no longer lame pickup lines, but delicious arias about pasta and libraries.

“Mr. Starbuck. I think they’ve overheard us. Hand me that cotton.”

“Aye, Capt—” The first mate shuddered, his eyes glazed. “But if I follow them, I’ll get to live in a library and read forever. FOREVER.” He took one shambling step, then another.

Goshawk, too, found herself compelled towards the railing of the airship’s bow. “Orecchiette with saffron basil cream. Pesto campanelle with pine nuts and morels…”

Captain and first mate stood side by side for a moment, while lightning illuminated thunderheads like lanterns in the reddening sky. They glanced at each other, then clasped hands and squeezed.

“A library cathedral. A heaven paved in books.”

“A grotto to Michelin-star pasta. An abbey of chefs at my command.”

They each placed a foot on the railing and leapt overboard hand-in-hand, buffeted by the cold sweet air.

It looked like the start of a beautiful friendship. Let us hope it lasts somewhat longer than forty-five seconds.


	2. Nay, Calypso

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ace skypirate washes up on the nymph Calypso's island, and she's game for a challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Author's note: I thought I'd written myself into a corner with chapter one, but it was so much fun to write I knew there had to be more...so of course I had no ideas for weeks. And then it hit me in one gigantic rush. Special thanks to [Motchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Motchi%22) for the spot of fine-tuning.

Starbuck regained consciousness with the taste of salt in his mouth. He lay on his back on a sandy beach while above him, blurry white birds wheeled against clouds glowing orange in the setting sun.

He sat up with a start, as a wave broke on the shore and cold water rushed over his legs. His jacket was gone, as were his shoes. “My spectacles!” He searched his soaked and gritty waistcoat pockets, but they were empty.

But he still had his book. Starbuck had maintained a death-grip on his leather-bound library edition of _Moby Dick_ throughout…whatever had happened. His fingers found the ribbon marker still tucked between the book’s deckled pages. He’d completely lost track of time and space, but he hadn’t lost his place, at least.

“Thank Neptune for that.” He hugged the book to his chest. It was as ocean-saturated as himself, but paper would dry—eventually.

A flash of vertigo sent Starbuck’s mind spinning with scattered memories. Most of them involved some impossibly massive library. And an airship that had disappeared above him in the clouds. The squeeze of a hand in his own. 

He squinted at the sky, and when that turned fruitless, he struggled to his feet and stumbled across the sand, scaring up the blurry flocks of seagulls that had been waiting for him to just give up and die already.

“Captain?” The word rasped in Starbuck’s salt-parched throat. “Captain Goshawk! Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

He limped along the beach, first one way, then another, pausing at every dark captain-sized blotch in his vision. A driftwood log. A knot of kelp. A seal that slid away on its belly as he approached. He stubbed his bare toes on a rocky protrusion mostly hidden by sand, lost his balance, and slammed into the ground.

The fall knocked the wind out of him. He knelt in the sand gasping for breath and wondered if this was a panic attack. The sun had slipped to the horizon, and a cold breeze rose to chill his sand-stiff, clammy clothes. Another freezing wave coasted up the sloped beach and sluiced around his legs. As the water rushed back out to sea, it left something palm-sized and red washed up near him. Starbuck crawled over and picked it up, flipped it over.

The ace of spades.

“Captain?” He shivered and glanced around.

There, inland. His eyes detected movement in front of a dark mass of rocks. Another human.

“Captain!”

Starbuck wiped the sand off the playing card as best he could and tucked it inside the cover of _Moby Dick_. He felt too dizzy to stand, so he shuffled across the sand on his knees toward the figure.

The figure must have noticed him. The light-colored blotch grew as it approached, morphing into the hazy form of a woman.

“Ahoy!” he shouted. “Friend!” He couldn’t see the person in much detail, but made out the halo of her blonde hair and determined she wore some flesh-colored garment. Almost certainly not the captain.

“Hark to me, fair stranger.” She spoke in a too-feminine voice, a grown woman adopting a girlish falsetto. “Welcome to my bountiful island, bursting with the ripest fruit and sweetest honey, where nothing you desire shall be denied you.”

Starbuck recognized that cutesy tone of voice, and his guard went up. The freshest cabin-girls sometimes adopted it with him when they’d overslept, or spilled a barrel of deck-sealant down the galley stairs. They assumed—wrongly—he’d treat them like the sweet, guileless, pitiful innocents they most certainly were not.

“Oh,” he said, unsure how to read her last statement. “That’s…nice. I don’t suppose you have a telegraph I could borrow? And some bandages, too. I did just literally fall…let me see, what was the reading on the altimeter…18,843 feet into the ocean. You haven’t seen anyone else washed ashore, have you?”

“Oh, my poor dear!” She leaned down and took his hands in hers, but he shook them free. “You are my first castaway in years. Just imagine, falling from the sky from one of those mighty, vigorous, thick and throbbing airships. Oh, what a virile stallion you must be to have survived such a catastrophe. But you are welcome to worship at the altar of my beauty. I can be very generous to supplicants.“

“My survival was pure luck.” Bad luck, apparently, though he didn’t say this aloud. Starbuck started to feel a bit weird about kneeling in the sand in front of this presumptuous lady, but he couldn’t get his legs to work, which meant instead of running, he would have to keep diffusing this charged conversation for all eternity. “Airships are _ really _ not that exciting. Trust me. I get a lot of reading done. Assuming the crew aren’t behaving like idiots, which is 70% of the time. Then I have to put on my grouchy old schoolmaster act, and no one likes that.”

She giggled. “My, what a modest, erudite gentleman you are. Maybe_ I _would like your schoolmaster act. Scold me, do!”

“The schoolmaster persona is an act I prefer to leave at the workplace, I’m afraid. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Well then, never mind. Forbidden fruits come in many flavors. Speak to me your deepest desires, your wildest fantasies. Even a man with the most ravenous and exacting of appetites shall be sated here.”

Starbuck no longer required his spectacles to determine that this woman was in fact wearing zero garments, flesh-colored or otherwise. “My appetite’s shot, actually. Falling a full nautical league into the water can be somewhat nauseating. But thanks. Umm…would you care to tell me your name before getting all personal on me?”

“I am the nymph Calypso, and I have lived, lonely and unfulfilled, for many, many years.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Calypso. You can call me Mr. Starbuck. There, see? Now we’ve actually exchanged names like proper individuals. So that means, after we’ve known each other for a decade or so, you can come back around to asking me those other things and maybe I’ll humor you. But not before then.”

“Oh,” she said flatly, then switched back to her cloying girlish tone. “You must have hit your head quite badly, I see blood. Let me look closer. Did you fall just now?” She ran her hands through his hair, along his jaw, and over his neck. It might have been rather pleasant if only she’d asked his permission first. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt for playing nurse. If she patched up his wounds at some point, he wouldn’t complain.

“Recently, I think. My pocket watch and spectacles are lost, otherwise I’d tell you precisely how long ago, too.”

“Your…spectacles?” Calypso’s tone brightened suddenly, the auditory version of a 2,000-lumen lamp switching on. “Oh, do you mean these?” She sensually slid a pair of glasses onto his face. “My, how sophisticated you look.”

Starbuck blinked. He knew they weren’t his own—the scratch-free, polished lenses and sturdy, unbent frames attested to that—but the magnification was perfect. Better than the old pair, even. He could see whitecaps breaking on the ocean’s far horizon, and a tiny yellow beetle on his knee that waggled its antenna at him. And, yes, all the rest of _ her _ that she so desperately vaunted. He obliged, mainly so she couldn’t accuse him of being a prude.

Right. Enchantress. Magic spectacles and all that. Oh, and she most definitely preferred to walk about au naturale. That was her right, of course, this was her island. Still, it seemed entirely too chilly for that. But what did he know. He wasn’t acclimated, and his clothes were bloody cold and wet. It might have been nice for him to strip down, too, but that would have given her the wrong idea entirely. He’d have offered his coat to her, but it was lost to the waves.

“Do you like what you see, Mr. Starbuck? Has it jogged your bruised memory, perhaps, and suggested any sweet desires? What can I place between your lips? My island’s homegrown melons are in season…”

“Did you know,” said Starbuck quickly, “that melons, especially the ones with open rinds like cantaloupe, are highly susceptible to contamination? Contagion lurks in the crevices, and when you slice a knife down in, it drags all the nastiness right through the cut. I never eat melons. Sorry, I’m sure they’re perfectly tasty, but I must refuse.”

“But no one has ever before refused the melons of my island. Surely you can see for yourself how delectable they are. Wait, what is that?” she leaned over to get a closer look at the book he still clutched under one arm. “Perhaps your preference lies there, instead?”

Starbuck hugged_ Moby Dick _tighter and leaned away. He wasn’t giving up his book without a fight.

Calypso started to laugh. “Oh, are you reading that book about the ‘whale’? By the wings of Eros, I should have realized the truth ages ago._ Of course _sweet melons don’t suit you. Your taste is savory. But I have eggplants in my garden too…” And with a flick of her hand, she transformed.

Starbuck didn’t realize eight-pack abs were an attainable goal until that moment, though he had serious misgivings about what sort of herbal supplements were required to maintain such a physique and, umm, size. This was the sort of man his cabin-girls would throw themselves overboard for, or write little romantic stories about. He’d stumbled upon those stories occasionally under pillows during bunk inspections. They usually featured idealized versions of the writer wracked in throes of explicit passions with said man. Some of them were even quite good from a craft standpoint. Hey, whatever got the kids writing. He didn’t judge. He dabbled in self-insert fiction himself, of a sort. But mostly for laughs, he told himself.

At any rate, this charade was getting tiresome, and the sun had set. “Look,” he said. “This is ridiculous. My needs are very simple. I’m a half-drowned, injured man who requires medical attention, water, rest, and a way to contact my chain of command. If you can assist me with any of those things, I’d be very grateful. If not, I’m going to keep crawling along this beach until I find them.”

Starbuck started to shuffle on his knees past the naked male-Calypso, but was scooped into those muscular, glistening arms and carried bridal-style across the sand.

“I take that as a ‘yes, I can help you’ then?”

“Yes. Don’t be afraid to grip my neck very tightly so you don’t fall,” said Calypso in exactly the rich tenor voice Starbuck had expected, his muscles rippling as he moved.

“It’s…fine. I suspect you wouldn’t drop me if even if I slammed a two-by-four between your eyes.”

Starbuck took advantage of this new, taller vantage point and his new spectacles. They were heading inland, which seemed promising. But he still found no further sign of Captain Goshawk.

Now that he could see his surroundings with some definition, Starbuck noted the volcanic rocks and lush, terraced gardens maintained on otherwise arid land. A cozy little cottage with welcoming light in its windows and clematis growing up the walls came into view.

“You’ve done a lovely job with the place,” said Starbuck, trying to not to recoil at the way his bare skin, exposed in places by his torn clothes, stuck to Calypso’s chest as they made progress up the slope. “It must take a lot of work to maintain.”

“It does,” said male-Calypso, a tinge of pride in his voice. “Thanks.” He didn’t speak nearly as much as his female option. Perhaps he was going for the strong, silent type. Starbuck wasn’t about to complain.

Calypso carried him over the cottage threshold—Starbuck hoped s/he wasn’t reading too much symbolism into that—and placed him on a chaise lounge with his feet up.

“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.” Calypso fumbled with Starbuck’s buttons until Starbuck thwacked his hand away with his book. “You…really aren’t enjoying any of this, are you?”

Starbuck pressed a palm to his aching forehead. “No, I’m afraid not. Thank you for picking up on the hidden subtext this time around. If you’ll just help me to the washroom and lend me a robe, I’ll take care of myself.”

“Oh, there’s no need to bother yourself.” Calypso waved his hand.

In a flash Starbuck found himself clean, shaven, and dressed in a blue woolen bathrobe. Fleece slippers covered his bandaged feet. A glass of gin & tonic over ice rested in his hand.

He side-eyed Calypso. “First, thanks, this is lovely. Second, if you had the power to do this all along—”

“You’re supposed to enjoy the process, not resist every moment of it. Don’t you enjoy being taken care of, you devilish, handsome, coldhearted man?”

“Coldhearted?” Starbuck sipped his G&T. “I do actually enjoy a bit of pampering, under the right circumstances. But here, with you, everything you say and do comes with strings attached. Not just strings, entire skeins. And I don’t want to pull on a single thread. Your web might be invisible to most, but to me it’s an emergency klaxon howling in my ear. There’s simply no way for me to pretend it doesn’t exist, or ‘get in the mood’, or whatever. So you can give up now.”

Calypso’s lip trembled. “I’m sorry. Would you…would you rather I return to my feminine form?”

Starbuck sighed. “Look. First, don’t take rejection personally. It’s not always about you. Second, it’s your body, and you’re free to present yourself however you feel comfortable. It’s not my place to exert control over your body, but at the same time I expect you to return that consideration. Do we have an understanding?”

Calypso nodded, and morphed back into her female version, but this time she wore a pink, empire-waisted nightgown. “Then I hope you don’t mind if I slip into something more comfortable.”

“Not at all. You do look much warmer.”

“I am, thank you.” She had dropped her girlish act, and spoke with a deeper, sultry voice more in keeping with her age. “But, my darling Mr. Starbuck, I want you to know that my game is seduction, and true seduction requires your full consent. You have resisted me like no other man, and I find that particularly…alluring. I’m not going to give up on you just yet. I believe that, like Achilles, we all have an exposed heel, and I’m going to find yours.”

Starbuck looked up from his book, which had, like himself, become magically dry. “Good luck with that.”

Calypso hauled an armchair away from the wall and positioned it directly in front of the chaise lounge. She seated herself, propping her bare feet on the chaise lounge next to Starbuck without touching him, and leaned forward with a mischievous grin. “I have given you aid, succor, shelter, liquor, and”—she waved her hand and a plate of chocolate biscuits appeared on his lap—“food. You’ll agree that this is a great favor, and you are in my debt.”

Starbuck instinctively reached for a biscuit, then stopped himself. “Since when does seduction involve an exchange of services?” he asked. 

“It doesn’t,” she answered. “I have no say over your body. But perhaps you’ll indulge me in an intellectual game of sorts. I’ll ask you questions any common acquaintance might ask, and you give me truthful answers. Kinky fantasies are off the table. You give me answers to, say, ten questions tops. And then your debt is paid. You may go as you please. What say you?”

“Very well.” This time Starbuck did take the biscuit. It paired well with the G&T, and neither seemed to be laced with any mind-altering substances—not counting the 40% alcohol content of the gin, anyway. She was underestimating him. “Hit me with your first question, then.”

“Why Moby Dick, exactly?”

Starbuck blinked. He’d expected a wide range of questions, but not that one. He wasn’t even sure if he could answer it. “Umm…it’s emotionally engaging?”

“That’s not a good enough answer to repay your debt to me, Starbuck.” Oof. She’d pulled out her own stern schoolmistress act, and he had to admit she was the better actor. “You fail to find my wiles alluring. So why are you magnetized by that book? Is it the sweet, hand-holding romance-friendship between Ishmael and Queequeg, by chance? Their mutual respect and kindness towards each other?”

Starbuck nearly dropped his book—which was saying a lot, considering the death-grip he’d had on it since departing the airship. “How…how did you know? Have you read it?”

“I have. My boudoir is full of books, which you might see for yourself if only I could crowbar you inside for a second, my sweet, lovely, well-read man. Sappho, Ovid, Austen, _Delta of Venus_,_Venus in Furs_, even a bit of Sade, though I doubt you’re into that. I’ve read all the great classics of love, and that includes _Moby Dick_, though many readers fail to realize it. Ishmael and Queequeg are even symbolically married, and there’s all kinds of innuendo to suggest more. That’s a true romance, in my book.”

“Is it, though? I mean, I won’t dismiss your interpretation, but I still read it as a friendship—a very intense, physical one. Wouldn’t that be nice.” He sighed. “As for me, the reader, I enjoy accompanying them on the ship. I don’t want to get in the way of them, just…be there.” Starbuck set the book in his lap. He considered himself reasonably articulate, but until now he hadn’t managed—or even tried—to wrap his head around why he felt so caught up in this particular book that he couldn’t bring himself to put it down for a second, even if he barely had the time to read it. Maybe he wasn’t the cold fish everyone assumed. Maybe he was…_romantic._ Or just intensely, physically platonic. He’d probably never know.

“Have you ever tried writing yourself on the ship?” asked Calypso with a wink. “That is, creating your own little story that’s like the book, but not. And you control how it unravels. That’s my question number two, by the way. I’m keeping track, don’t worry.” Calypso folded her hand over Starbuck’s. This time he let her.

“Yes, actually.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’ve never talked about it with anyone before, though. But this is…rather fun, isn’t it? I gave myself a cameo. Total self-insert.” He thought again about his cabin-girls and what they’d say if they ransacked his desk and found it. Which, come to think of it, might be happening right this second. “But I don’t write myself making, you know, _mind-blowing love_.” Thank Neptune for that. “Or anyone else, either. I just want the characters to be sweet and have, you know, feelings.”

Calypso gave his hand a squeeze, and Starbuck squeezed back. “Do you have any idea how utterly adorable you are to me right now? I just want to…ruffle your hair.” She didn’t actually touch his hair, however.

Pleasure shot through Starbuck, like a more enjoyable version of a tasering. He and Calypso—their minds were on the same wavelength now. They had just talked about_ books_. He’d had a bloody _revelation_.

“Do you have any other recommendations?” he asked, with what Calpyso probably thought was doe-eyed bashfulness. He hadn’t intend to, it just came out that way. “For books, I mean. To read. Once I’m done with Moby Dick.”

“All in good time, Mr. Starbuck. I’m the one asking the questions for now, remember?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, echoing her playful tone, and made a bit of cuddle-room for her next to him on the chaise lounge. She placed his empty glass and book on the table, and wasted no time snuggling up next to him while throwing her legs casually across his lap.

“Question three is,” she whispered in his ear, “will you kiss me? Chaste is fine.”

“I…I think I’d rather you kissed me,” he said shyly. “Will you be offended if I close my eyes first?”

“Not at all, my sweet. I can tell you are more sensual than you think.” She nuzzled his neck. “Does that feel nice? Shall I do it again?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember the part where Ishmael and Queequeg snuggle in bed? Wasn’t it adorable?”

Starbuck laughed. “Queequeg coming back to the Inn to find Ishmael in his bed--I was expecting adventure on the high seas, not romantic comedy. Not that I'm complaining...”

“Are you sure you didn’t write that part into your little themed story?” Calypso lay her head on his shoulder, and Starbuck laughed harder.

“Ha, very funny. Although…” He added hesitantly, “I might have had my self-insert character pick Queequeg for his harpoon boat. There won’t be much snuggling, though. I’m not getting in the way of a beautiful friendship.”

“Uh, Starbuck? How far into the book are you?”

“They’ve just launched the boats after a whale for the first time.” As usual, he found it impossible to reign in his enthusiasm. With Calypso, he didn’t even bother trying. She, one of very few, understood. “I’ve been stuck on the same page for days now.”

“Ah. Well, I only ask that you temper your expectations somewhat. Especially with regards to the romance.”

“Oh?” He was going to ask more, but she shifted positions suddenly, straddling him. The schoolmistress tone was back. He much preferred that act to the silly girl one.

“Next question, Mr. Starbuck. Tell me about someone you admire. Man, woman, doesn’t matter. Someone you know personally.”

This was the easiest question yet. “Captain Goshawk,” he answered. 

“And why is this? Care to elaborate, sir?”

Starbuck thought about it. “Well, she’s decisive, ruthless, but she’s open to listening when I disagree with her. I trust her decisions. And I never, ever have to worry about her spilling a barrel of deck sealant down the galley stairs.”

“Tsk.” Calypso gave his knuckles a little rap. “That’s all well and good, but what does she look like?”

How did one describe Goshawk? Starbuck didn’t know. “Tall? Late thirties? Wicked scar on one cheek that looks terrifying when she’s mad. Does a mean snarl.”

“How about eye-color? Describe her glistening orbs.”

Starbuck grimaced. The words “glistening orbs” had brought on a wave of nausea. “Honestly, I never noticed. Who notices eyes, unless there’s one missing? Brown, I guess.”

“You are being maddeningly vague. Give me a better visual. A hotness-rank on a scale from one to ten, or a bustier size, for example. She’s a cougar, clearly. Or would you say more tigress? Or something more canine, like a timber wolf—?”

The thought of his captain being reduced to a physical prototype annoyed Starbuck. “She’s a human,” he said curtly. “And I respect her. That’s all I have to say.”

He started to push Calypso off, but she slid back into her snuggle position and placed a hand over his heart. “If you can’t tell me with words, I’ll just have to use magic instead.”

Starbuck expected to feel a zap, a tingling, some sign of magic being summoned, but nothing happened. That is, until he looked at Calypso and stared down into a face he thought was lost forever. 

“Captain,” Starbuck said, choking back his relief like a sob. “I thought you were dead.”

She fixed him with a stern, familiar look. “Is that why you abandoned me, Mr. Starbuck?” 

Deep down, he knew it was an illusion, but he couldn’t help himself. Emotions battered him nearly senseless, like waves against a jetty. It was an _ alive _ Goshawk, and that’s all that mattered to him. 

“I swear to you, Captain, when I woke up, I was alone,” Starbuck said helplessly. “I searched for you—I yelled your name until I was hoarse from it—but it was all in vain.”

Goshawk frowned. “Seems to me that you gave up pretty damn quickly, Starbuck. Is that what Ishmael would have done?”

Starbuck looked down at his hands. “No, Captain.”

“Then kiss me,” said Goshawk. “Like you mean it.” 

The demand was so uncharacteristic of her, so _ alien_, that all Starbuck could do was blink and sputter, “Captain?”

She clasped the sides of his face with an aggressive passion Starbuck knew Goshawk would never, not in a million years, employ. 

She leaned into him. Their noses touched.

_ No_, screamed some tiny, distant part of him. _She’s not real! Don’t give in! _

Starbuck had never wanted to kiss anyone in his life. He didn’t now. But if the Captain demanded that he prove himself, he would give his all, for her.


End file.
